5121
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Basing ethics on flourishing makes it consequentialist, as actions are judged by contributing to it [Harman]
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Full Idea:
Basing ethics on human flourishing tends towards utilitarianism or consequentialism; actions, character traits, laws, and so on are to be assessed with reference to their contributions to human flourishing.
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From:
Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.2)
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A reaction:
This raises the question of whether only virtue can contribute to flourishing, or whether a bit of vice might be helpful. This problem presumably pushed the Stoics to say that virtue itself is the good, rather than the resulting flourishing.
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23692
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Good and bad are a matter of actions, not of internal dispositions [Foot]
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Full Idea:
Some philosophers insist that dispositions, motives and other 'internal' elements are the primary determinants of moral goodness and badness. I have never been a 'virtue ethicist' is this sense. For me it is what is done that stands in this position.
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From:
Philippa Foot (Rationality and Goodness [2004], p.2), quoted by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought 4 'Virtue'
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A reaction:
[She mentions Hursthouse, Slote, Swanton] I'm quite struck by this. Aristotle insists that morality concerns actions. It doesn't seem that a person could be a saint by having wonderful dispositions, but doing nothing. Paraplegics?
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